The Health Collaborative receives new designation to help area doctors improve care, lower costs

CINCINNATI – The Health Collaborative (THC) announced today their approval by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR). This designation allows THC to help practices meet key performance requirements qualifying them for financial incentives from the federal government.

This designation follows the creation of Medicare’s Quality Payment Program (QPP), created in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), which streamlined a collection of quality programs into a single system where Medicare physicians and other clinicians have a chance to be rewarded for better care.

QPP includes a specific performance-reporting track called the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) to incentivize physicians to engage in certain quality improvement activities for the care they provide their patients. Under MIPS, physicians report this quality data for performance categories including Quality, Advancing Care Information, and Improvement Activities.

As an approved QCDR entity, THC will be able to collect quality data in these MIPS categories from area physicians participating in this new quality improvement reporting program, and report it to CMS directly for the 2017 reporting period to help track quality and improve patient care. This will help regional physicians more efficiently fulfill reporting requirements and be eligible for positive payment adjustments in Medicare Part B reimbursement while avoiding negative payment adjustments.

THC will also provide periodic performance reports to practices along with regional benchmarks, giving them the ability to track progress against their own goals as well as their peers.

“The QCDR designation from CMS will allow The Health Collaborative to reduce the large reporting burden on area practices so they can focus on improving the quality of patient care in Greater Cincinnati,” says Romi Wang, Senior Data Analyst at The Health Collaborative. “It also demonstrates that THC has met all CMS requirements for reporting standards and will continue to adapt them for practice needs as federal policy evolves.”

In addition to reporting, THC’s QCDR team will provide practices guidance on selecting measures that that align with their priorities and other valued-based payment programs.

“This allows practices to compare and pick their top performing measures to report, and maximize their payment,” says Wang.

The Health Collaborative is a non-profit organization that strives to positively impact health status, experience, outcomes, and affordability by fostering a connected system of healthcare and community health through innovation, integration, and informatics in the greater Cincinnati region. For more information about the Health Collaborative, visit www.healthcollab.org.